The bed in all its glory!
We have started seeds for the garden and currently have tomatoes, onions, cabbage and celery growing. My girlfriend has also started an attempt at growing mushrooms. No spores or anything yet but they should be emerging any day now. We have been planning for the summer and have a bit of work ahead of us in terms of clearing out trees, building beds and building some type of enclosure to keep moose out. I’ve learned that fencing is expensive! I’m thinking of doing a split rail type fence out of spruce trees taken from the property. We are also likely going to have a couple pigs this summer and will be building that enclosure out of pallets.
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Trail from a recent ski trip
March and April are some of the best times of the year for outdoor travel in Alaska. Skies are generally clear, there is abundant light and temperatures are warming. I’ve taken a few trips to some public use cabins in the area outside daily skiing/fatbiking. One of the trips culminated in broken irreparable ski bindings leading me to walk through the snow 10 mi back to the car. Fun! The others were much more successful. My girlfriend and I recently visited an ice cave at the foot of a glacier and then a friend and I recently completed a 100 mile bike loop in the White Mountains. I wasn’t sure I was going to join him as he was looking to do it in 2 days. The first being 29 miles and the second 71. Perhaps laughable distances on a road, but snow trails is a little bit of a different story (to wit, average speed on this trip was about 6 mph...). But I ended up going along and we had great conditions for the most part, only pushing our bikes for maybe 4-5 miles. I’ve been making more videos lately and have also recently become active on my blog again. If anyone’s interested they can watch/read more about those trips there.
View of the Alaska Range from a recent cabin trip
Me pushing my bike uphill through drifted snow with some help from my dog
My lessons in Spanish are going well. I’m still taking about 2-3 lessons a week. Outside of the lessons, I listen to as much Spanish as I can, usually in podcast form but I also have watched some Spanish tv series as well. It’s probably about 1.5-2 hrs of “immersion” per day on average and I really enjoy it. Something I need to be more consistent with is my vocab practice. I’ve fell off the wagon with that.
I finished off the last of the caribou. My consumption rate is roughly 1 caribou for 1.5 months. I saved the tongue for one of my final meals and found it to be one of my favorite parts of the animal! I went again recently to look around and had no luck. I have plans to go to the arctic in the beginning of April and look around with some friends but unless we get lucky it seems like it will just be fish for a while.
I am dissatisfied with my current car usage but at the moment do not have a strong enough alternative vision of the future to change it. I need to find more examples of those living in rural locations without cars or perhaps be more creative. But for now I don't have any ideas on how to change.
I recently was given a raise at work and was moved to a salaried position. This is very good as I can work less. Until now I was working more or less every day (by choice). Now I can actually have regular periods where I don’t work and even time off from work where I am still paid. I’d estimate it’ll probably be about a 30% decrease in working time. I’m planning to use this time to become more of a renaissance man. There are skill areas which I’ve been meaning to advance that I’ve stalled on. Categories and ideas for projects are as follows:
- Biking (repair and maintenance). This has the highest priority as one of my bikes is currently in serious need of TLC. I have the Park’s Blue Book of Bike Repair on hold from the library and plan to dive into it this month.
Sewing- I’d like to make some of my outdoor gear and I am contemplating following @sky’s design for a sleeping quilt. Another thing I’d like to explore is the possibility of making insulated pants.
Wood- I think I’d like to get more into traditional woodworking. I have a friend who has been trying to push me onto carving, things like spoons and bowls. It may be a good spot to start. Ultimately, I’d like to build things like chairs and skis out of local materials.